The love story from rural Minnesota to a Martinborough river terrace bore the fruit of elegant award-winning olive oil and wine in the Te Muna Valley. As an evolution from a career in law and business, Margaret and Mike Hanson’s passion for the laws of nature became their next intellectual fascination at Blue Earth. Words Sarah Perriam-Lampp.

After meeting on an exchange in the United States, Margaret Hanson brought home a passionate law student to Wellington to establish a family life and career in the capital city that suited the self-proclaimed ‘city girl’ just perfectly.

Raised in rural Minnesota in the US, Mike fell in love with Martinborough after spending many holidays camping in the Wairarapa region. Eventually Margaret gave in to the persistence of her husband who insisted life in the country was their next life chapter. Content with the concept of a small lifestyle block, Margaret never imagined in 1996 it would turn into 30 acres of award-winning wine and olive oil.

Bush, river and a lifestyle – not a life sentence – was at the top of Margaret’s non-negotiables, so it was clear they shouldn’t plant a vineyard as that would be too much work. Instead, the couple were drawn to olives for their low-maintenance appeal. So in 1998 they planted 550 olive trees over seven acres. ‘There’s something about producing a product from the land where you can truly taste the terroir (soil profile) of the earth; from trees that can live thousands of years and that is good for you,’ says Margaret.

Under the brand Blue Earth, the Hansons began their foray into olives at a time when New Zealand’s olive industry was at the onset of where it is today. The Hansons sought the advice of a consultant from Blenheim and did a harvest at an olive grove before flying into their choice of land use. ‘Those already in olives were so supportive of us at the start, providing lots of really great advice. There was a lot of reading, and trial and error in those early days. Particularly to land on the varieties we wanted to plant.’

They wanted varieties that could produce both oil and table olives, so opted to plant Barnea (Israeli), Manzanillo (Spanish) and Koroneiki (Greek) blended with Manzanillo oil. All olives are picked and pressed separately and then blended together to give three distinct flavours.

The main trend and advice was in favour of the Spanish variety, Manzanillo, which went on to be a part of the many awards Blue Earth has won over the years, such as a Gold at the World Olive Oil Competition in New York in 2022 and recently at the 2024 New Zealand Extra Virgin Olive Oil Awards ‘Best in Boutique’. This was a blend of their Greek variety, Koroneiki and Manzanillo fruit.

It was described by the judges as having ‘green bananas and tropical fruit on the nose and wood notes at the end. Great intensity and great transfer of flavours to the palate with well-balanced bitterness and pungency.’

In the early days, much joy came with bringing friends and family together to help with harvest, sharing in food and wine, but they are grateful for the tree harvester they introduced in 2009 after the trees were old enough.

‘The olive oil market is really starting to mature as most growers are our age or older who got into it early on. But with the global shortage of olive oil, we are seeing a renewed level of interest for olives to be a viable choice to grow.’

An unscripted entry into wine

It was when the Hansons were in the midst of planting their olive grove on their bare sheep paddock in 1998 that one of Martinborough’s pioneer winemakers, Bill Brink, told them it was a crime they had planted olives – the land should only be growing grapes.

It turns out Bill needed more grapes for his Walnut Ridge wines and they said yes on the proviso that it was going to be his responsibility. Their strategy of a lifestyle in the country was not managing the demands of vines, so in 1999 Bill started planting on an acre. 

It was the beneficial location and climate of the Te Muna Valley river terrace with its limestone shelf that drew Bill to the spot. The unique flavour profile from being two degrees cooler, which toughens up the grape skins, excited Bill; along with the gentle warm north-facing slope which was clear of frosts. It was a safe climate for grapes, hanging on two weeks longer than Martinborough, which was handy for sharing picking crews with his other vineyards.

Bill kept expanding the footprint of the vineyard with Margaret and Mike leasing the land to him, while they paid for the infrastructure. A deal that was going well until Bill suddenly, and sadly passed away three years later.

The couple were drawn to olives for their low-maintenance appeal.

Overnight Margaret and Mike became vineyard owners with more poles and plants ordered for an expansion. They took a deep breath and decided to continue – they now have seven acres of Pinot Noir and Pinot Gris grapes.

When Bill died, Mike would mutter that they should just pull the vineyard out, but Margaret resisted, pointing out that they had invested too much time and effort to do that, so she leant into the challenge and set off to do a Diploma in Viticulture at the Eastern Institute of Technology.

‘I have had lots of good people support us with advice and technique; and a supportive local winemaking community, as many of us are quite small. I had never worked in a sector that can be both competitive and co-operative.’

While Margaret oversees the viticulture work in the vineyard, they originally contracted in Martinborough Vineyard who took them under their wing in the early days, buying their grapes for their label under the helpful eye of assistant winemaker Paul Mason. Paul went on to establish The Elder Pinot 2023, and bought into Blue Earth.

‘It’s a full circle with Bill and Paul. Paul kept us on the right track after Bill died with his winemaking for us in the early days, and is now a close friend, and neighbour after buying an abandoned vineyard that Bill had put in.’

Blue Earth specialises in complex savoury Pinot Noir, dry, textured Pinot Gris and dry, full-bodied Rosé, and their philosophy is to hold their Pinot Noir back from the market after five years of cellaring, only soon releasing their 2020 vintage.

‘Making wine has been much more intellectual than I thought!’ says Margaret. ‘It’s all how you manipulate the grape canopy for the quality of the wine to get the perfectly balanced canopy, to get the amount of light and air and balance onto the grapes that you want.’

Neither Mike nor Margaret had any background in marketing or sales and so it has been a steep learning curve. ‘We will always be grateful to James from Floriditas in Wellington sitting down with us and talking through how restaurants think about their wine lists and make their purchasing decisions. And other local producers shared their ideas on how to market and sell wines.’

They also learnt how to set up a stand at the local Martinborough wine shop to encourage people to taste their wines. ‘I still remember that first time I sold a bottle of wine,’ continues Margaret. ‘I had been standing there nervously for an hour while people walked past. I finally figured out how to catch people’s attention and started to have conversations. And then they started buying. I wanted to hug them!’

Margaret then took on a chairperson role with Wines from Martinborough, an organisation set up to promote wines from the region, ironically with the least experience in marketing wine. ‘We got to ride on the coat-tails of the wine pioneers of our region.’

Even though they have promoted their wines at many different wine events around the country over the years and had them positively reviewed and written about by many wine writers, being on Country Calendar in 2022 saw 25,000 people try to visit their website, which unsurprisingly crashed. 

Mike, the man who dragged her over the Rimutakas 27 years earlier, says Margaret really ‘runs the show’. He has enjoyed the strong community of Martinborough being welcomed by the farmers and says it reminds him a bit of hit US TV show Cheers – a fitting analogy for a pair of passionate wine drinkers sharing their piece of the world through the glass.